Notwithstanding the lack of response to my previous query, I was wondering if anybody currently based in Italy could give me a rough idea of the cost of living.

Here in Turkey, I can take a taxi to a decent restaurant, eat well, drink well and taxi home, all for the equivalent of about 35 Euros. Cigarettes, 1.5 Euros a packet; a beer, 2 euros; a cheap meal 2 euros; cinema ticket, 3 Euros etc.

Here in Turkey, I can take a taxi to a decent restaurant, eat well, drink well and taxi home, all for the equivalent of about 35 Euros. Cigarettes, 1.5 Euros a packet; a beer, 2 euros; a cheap meal 2 euros; cinema ticket, 3 Euros etc.

A meal for two (with wine) in a family-run restaurant costs about 25 euro and up. I don't smoke - no idea how much cigarettes cost. A decent bottle of wine in a supermarket is around 5 euros, and cinema tickets are about 6 or 7 euro.

I eat very well, and shop at supermarkets, open-air markets (and wine emporiums.) For two people, all our food and household needs (excluding electricity and telephone bills, rent etc) come to about 130 euro a week. But we eat a lot of organic food and drink good wine.

I'd be interested to know what wine you drink. I lived in Rome from the age of 4 to 11 and started drinking itsy bitsy drops of wine in my aqua minerale with the proportion of wine getting larger as I got older.

In those days trattoria wine was pretty bad - it didn't even make the journey from Frascati or the Colli very well.

I really like the dry white wines from Campania: Falanghina and Greco di Tuffo. I also like Frascati wine, but I'm not sure it "travels" that well. I don't think that much beats eating a good meal in Frascati in summer, with the Frascati superiore on tap...

There are some nice red wines from Tuscany, and some highly rated red wines from the north of the country. The wine emporiums have a great range here, and the wine in trattorias is generally good. It's pretty dodgy in some of the bars, though.

How much does wine cost in the UK? Is it prohibitively expensive to drink wine with your meal?